India's vegetable oil imports fell 6.7 percent in June from a year earlier as buyers held off from purchases in the hope that prices would drop further, a top trade body said on Tuesday. But the world's biggest importer of the cooking oil is on course to buy 2.8- to 4.7-percent more this year, the Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) said.
Vegetable oil purchases totalled 883,679 tonnes in June, down from 947,591 tonnes a year earlier, SEA data showed. The country is expected to buy 11-11.2 million tonnes of oils in the year to October, up from 10.7 million tonnes in 2012/13, said B.V. Mehta, executive director of Mumbai-based SEA. "Global prices have been falling. Naturally, imports dropped in June because no wants to stock up in a bearish market," Mehta told Reuters by phone.
On Monday, benchmark Malaysian palm oil futures slipped to a more than nine-month low, tracking heavy losses in overseas soya and crude oil markets, while a firmer ringgit further dampened buying interest in the tropical oil. India, the world's top vegetable oil importer, mainly buys palm oil from top producers Indonesia and Malaysia, some crude soft oils, including soyaoil, from Latin America, and sunflower oil from Ukraine and Russia. Mehta said India could import more next year if monsoon rains do not revive in the next 10 days.
